What APAC heads of IT should ask before signing a delivery partner

If you're a head of IT at a multinational with operations across Asia, you've probably been pitched on "Asia delivery" by a dozen firms in the last twelve months. Most of those pitches sound the same. Some of those firms can deliver. Many cannot. Telling them apart on the first call is hard.

Here are five questions that, in our experience, do most of the filtering.

1. Which entity am I contracting with?

This sounds boring. It's not. The contracting entity determines your IP protection, dispute-resolution jurisdiction, and tax treatment. A firm pitching "Asia delivery" but contracting through a Cayman or BVI entity is asking you to take on jurisdictional risk that your legal team probably will not sign off on quickly.

The cleanest answer is a Singapore Pte Ltd, which gives you English working language, strong IP law, and a familiar dispute-resolution framework. Some firms also offer local sub-entities for in-country contracting where regulations require it.

If the answer to "which entity?" is vague, that's a signal.

2. Who from your side leads my engagement, and what's their continuity commitment?

Body-shop firms staff by availability. Strategic delivery partners staff by named leads who own the relationship for the life of the engagement.

Ask specifically:

Who is the technical partner from your side?
Will they remain on this engagement for the full duration, or rotate?
What happens if they leave the firm during my project?

A firm that can't name the lead on the first call is staffing reactively. A firm whose named lead has a multi-quarter history with similar clients is the one to trust.

3. What time-zone coverage can you provide?

Asia delivery from Asian time zones is a feature, not a bug - but only if it overlaps with your team's working hours.

Ask:

What hours do your delivery teams work in their local time?
What's the practical overlap with our HQ time zone?
Are sync meetings within that overlap, or do they require someone on either side to work outside hours regularly?

Singapore time (SGT, UTC+8) overlaps with European mornings (CET 09:00-13:00 ≈ SGT 15:00-19:00) and US East mornings (ET 09:00-13:00 ≈ SGT 21:00-01:00). A delivery partner who offers a Singapore-anchored team typically has clean overlap with European operations and an evening overlap with US East. If they pretend to offer overlap with US West without acknowledging the unsocial-hours cost, push back.

4. What does your SLA actually commit to - and how is it enforced?

A "99.9% uptime SLA" with no remediation clause is a press release, not a contract. Look for:

Specific uptime windows - total, business hours, peak hours.
Response time commitments by severity.
Service credits as the enforcement mechanism.
Audit and reporting cadence - monthly is normal; quarterly is too slow.
Sub-processor list and notification policy for any third-party services in scope.

Public-sector and regulated-industry clients will reject vague SLAs in vendor review. So will mature enterprise procurement teams.

5. Show me three case studies I can call.

The single most powerful question. If a partner can produce three named references who'll take your call - even with anonymized public case studies - they're real. If they can only show logos with no narrative, ask why.

Reference calls don't have to be long. Two questions: Did they ship what they committed to? and What's the worst thing I should know about working with them? A reference who has only good things to say is either a polished one or hasn't done a serious engagement.

A note on the "outsourcing" word

If a partner pitches themselves as an "IT outsourcing" firm, ask what they mean. The framing matters: outsourcing-tier firms compete on cost, scale, and process. They're good for steady-state operations work. Consulting-tier firms compete on accountability, senior engineering depth, and strategic delivery. They're good for build-and-ship work where outcomes matter more than hours.

You probably want a consulting-tier partner for net-new builds and a more standardised partner for steady-state operations. Some firms do both well; most don't. Ask honestly which they are.

If you'd like to compare notes on a specific engagement you're scoping, book a 30-minute call with one of our delivery leads. Bring your shortlist.